A Land Without the Troubles?
Review A Land Without the Troubles? Northern Ireland’s most outlandish plan comes to fruition in Jan Carson’s new novel.
Operational Context & Conflict Trigger
Review A Land Without the Troubles? Northern Ireland’s most outlandish plan comes to fruition in Jan Carson’s new novel. August 21, 2026, 2:00 PM By Maxine Davey , an editorial fellow at Foreign Policy . People walk past an algae bloom at Battery Harbour on Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. People walk past an algae bloom at Battery Harbour on Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland on Aug. 18, 2025. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Northern Ireland’s history. During the Troubles, Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists clashed over whether Northern Ireland should remain in the United Kingdom or become part of a united Ireland. The conflict still permeates social and political life in the country, where efforts to confront its legacy are ongoing. In 2024, Northern Ireland established an independent inquiry to determine whether British state authorities could have prevented the carnage of the Omagh bombing. Two years later, the inquiry drags on, impeded by the difficulty of collecting evidence that is over a quarter of a century old, and the pain of dredging up historical grievances. In 1998, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) killed 29 people in the Omagh bombing, only four months after the Good Friday Agreement purported to put an end to the three-decade-long sectarian conflict known as the Troubles. Book cover titled "Few and Far Between" by Jan Carson against a light grey background. The cover art features a vertical aerial shot of a dark blue waterway surrounded by green landmasses, with a small red-and-white rowboat floating in the center.
Strategic Assessment & Balance of Power
Few and Far Between: A Novel , Jan Carson, Scribner, 336 pp., $28, July 2026 During the Troubles, Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists clashed over whether Northern Ireland should remain in the United Kingdom or become part of a united Ireland. In Northern Irish author Jan Carson’s new novel, Few and Far Between , a young anthropologist named Alex sets out on another mission to examine a messy past when she visits the place where her mixed-religion parents raised her: a fictional island archipelago that once sheltered a utopian community from the Troubles. Through chapters from Alex’s ethnography and the narration of the book’s central characters, Carson explores the dynamics of memory, reconciliation, and accountability that continue to haunt Northern Ireland. As in her previous work, Carson laces the novel with dark humor and magical realism, wielding absurdity to broach the lingering repercussions of the Troubles alongside the existential threats of our time. Balancing cynicism with charming earnestness, the book grapples with the dangers of melancholy and nostalgia in both personal and political life, prompting readers to consider what we lose when we paper over the past—and what further damage is possible when we drag that past back up again. Satellite view of the island of Ireland, showing its green landmass against the blue ocean. A large blue lake cuts a hole in the upper right of the island. A satellite image of the island of Ireland. Lough Neagh is seen at upper right in Northern Ireland. The scheme was only half-delivered, resulting in a receded waterline and the emergence of an archipelago known as the “Ark.” When the Troubles began in the late 1960s, the Ark offered “asylum,” quickly becoming populated by people in mixed Catholic/Protestant marriages or who otherwise faced discrimination on the mainland. A small utopian community sprang up, “[f]ueled by some kind of heady optimism,” and it actively integrated “without a thought for the traditional sectarian divide currently devastating the North.” Fascinated by the Ark as “both a victim of the ongoing conflict and an act of embodied protest,” famed anthropologist RJ Connolly brought his wife and three children to set up their home on one of the islands, where he began to study the community. The novel bounces between timelines: the 1970s, when RJ’s children—Marion, Robert-John, and Rosemary—are kids; and 2017, when Alex visits the islands to find Marion and Robert-John still living there as the Ark’s caretakers, even though both of their parents are dead, and the vast majority of the Ark’s inhabitants left after the Good Friday Agreement. A black-and-white photo viewed through a coiled circle of barbed wire. In the foreground, a young child
Expert Analysis — Pratyush Deo Tiwary
"Senior Analyst, Conflict Studies & Geopolitics: The dataset presented here underscores the accelerating shift in standard operational doctrines in the regional conflict evaluations arena. The indicators reveal a calculated adjustments by actors to establish regional fait accompli before countermeasures can be deployed. Analysts must focus on technical telemetry and geospatial changes over the next two quarters to gauge the efficacy of this pivot."
Related Domain Analysis: Explore our coverage of Indo-Pacific Power Dynamics & Maritime Security.
Key Takeaways
- Verifiable data in the regional conflict evaluations domain points to structural realignment.
- Attribution vectors suggest deliberate exploitation of grey-zone vulnerabilities.
- Immediate operational adjustments are required to restore deterrence thresholds.
- Continuous digital and geospatial tracking provides high-confidence early warning.
Analytical Feedback & Discussion
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